zen in the fifties

Satori,which means "insight into the true meaning", is only possible to ontain by intensely felt and practical, personal experiences. The experience of concrete things from everyday life is particularly importany. p.12

Irrationality and paradoxical thought are the only tools with which to gain insight into the true existence, since being cannot be penetrated by cerebral means.

"Hard because to understand it, is not to understand it; easy because not to understand it, is to understand it" Suzuki said.

Once Satori has been obtained, the world is experienced from a new, fresh point of view, as well as in its "wholeness'. -p.12

Zen unites the religious and the secular. And that has consequences for the Zen arts. Not only are arts practised in traditional forms, like poetry and painting, but also, perferably, by way of everyday activities like writing, tea-making, flower arranging, self-defence, archery, and swordsmanship. The necessary component of these arts obviates the antithesis between mind and body. -p.13

Heinrich Dumoulin described the relationship between art and meditation as follows: "The Zen arts are inspired by meditation and the meditation experiences manifest themselves in the arts." Zen wants us to make ourselves free and untrammelled, and sees the practice of art as a way of attaining the awakening and liberation of the self.

Zen wants us to get in touch with the 'inner workings of our being', without seeking refuge in the 'self' or resorting to anything external or superadded. -p.13

Shin'ichi Hisamatsu formulated seven characteristics of 'Zen Aesthetics' in his book zen and the fine arts: Asymmetry, Simplicity, Naturalness, Tranquillity, Freedom of Attachment, Subtle Profundity and Austere Sublimity. -p.16

In addition to these characteristics, we might add that the figures are placed in the entire composition. That is partly due to the factthat the empty sapces in the paintings are just as important as the painted figures.
Suzuki descrives the style and technique of Sumi-e in this essays as follows:
" THe inspiration is to be transferred on to the paper in the quickest possible time. The lines are to be drawn as suiftly as possible and the fewest in number, only the absolutely necessary ones being indicated. No deliberation is allowed, no erasing, no repetition, no retouching, no remodelling". (..)The master lets his brush move "without his conscious efforts. If any logic or reflection comes between brush and paper, the whole effect is spoiled.(...) There is no chiaroscuro, no perspective in it. Indeed, they are not needed in Sumi-e, which makes no pretension to realism. It attempts to make the spirit of any object move on the paper. Thus each brush-stroke must beat with the pulsation of a living being. It must be living too (...) the rhythm of its living breath vibrates in them."
-p.16

Aspects of Zen and the Zen arts

1. Emptiness and nothingness
In the Zen belief the concepts of emptiness and nothingness do not refer to an absence of something, but are 'complete' in themselves. It means that empty is also full, and nothing is something. -p.17
Suzuki worded Sutra as follows:
"Thus, Sariputra, all things have the character of emptiness, they have no begining, no end, they are faultness and not faultness, they are not perfect and not imperfect. Therefore, O Sariputra, here in this emptiness there in no form, no perception, no name, no concepts, no knowledge. No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. No form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object. . . There is no knowledge, no ignorance, no destruction of ignorance..."
The great significance of emptiness and nothingness in Zen is reflected in the description of Mu(meaning emptiness and nothingness) as "pure experience, the very foundation of our being and thought" and "always with us and in us(...), is our life itself." p.19

Moreover, emptiness plays an important part in the Zen arts, as a formal aspect. Take, for example, the central role played by the large empty spaces in Sumi-e, like the favourite subject of Enso and the expanses of emptiness in Zen garden. -p.19-20

2. Dynamism
The world is seen as a dynamic and constantly changing whole.Suzuki said, "Life itself must be grasped in the midst of its flow; to stop it for examination and analysis is to kill it, leaving its cold corpse to be embraced". It may be one which is noly attained after a disciplined learning process, in which the unity of subject and object has to be attained. The ensuing spontaneity is then one of naure itself. In the end, results of the Zen Master's painting and writing, the spontaneously painted lines are primarily what give the work a dynamic experession. The empty parts emanate a 'quiet dynamism.' -p.20

3. Indefinite and surrounding space
The japanese word Ma means both time and space, and is mainly interpreted as 'interval'. This term is not only used for a time interval, as in the pause between two notes of music, but the space between two brush-strokes is also experienced as Ma.

The traditional Japanese artist also see space as 'surrounding', meaning that during his work he is aware of the space around him, not just in front of him(similiar with Western persepective which aware of the space in front of him, and envisages it as receding.)
Kitaro Nishida described the space as "the space in art from the Far East is not the space facing the self, but the space in which the self is situated." ( the difference: observation with respect to Western artists, and participation with respect to Eastern artists)
In sumi-e the experience of the surrounding space can be perceived in the suggestion of an indefinite space. That means that there is not by any means a clearly receding space, but that the space in the work is also part of the space in which the viewer is situated. The absence of a horizon means that the suggestion of space can also be interpreted as an infinite space. p.20

4. Direct experience of here and now
Suzuki stresses thre focus on the concrete things of everyday life, commenting that Zen attaches inexperessibly great significance even in holding up a finger or in saying a 'good morning' to a friend casually met in the street. Shin'ichi Hisamatsu relates the interest within Zen in the commonplace with the amis of art:
"When in the raising of a hand or in a single step something of Zen is present, that Zen content seems to me to possess a very specific, artistic quality. A narrow conception of art might not accept that such manifestations contain anything artistic, but to me it seems that they possess an artistic quality that ordinarily cannot be seen, In fact, in such vital workings of Zen, I believe that something not merely artistic but also beyond art is involved, something toward which art should aim as its goal."
Suzuki thinks every Zensist is an artist, as he makes a work of art of his life. -p.22

5. Nondualism and the Universal
zen prefers nondualism, which is the opposite to the traditional Western way of thinking, based on 'discrimination'. This means that Western Man is primarily oriented towards edtablishing his own identity and that of other people and things, doing so by seeking differences. Zen advises a unification of antitheses.
The Zen Master tries to feel ar one with his materials, and thus obtain a more universal expression. The resulting pieces should also characterize a nondualism. That means that a fragment can seem both full and empty, that dynamism is at the same time rest, form can also be formless, and so on.-p.22-23